1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a tray-type disk drive apparatus that is most suitable for application to a CD/DVD player and the like, for example, and more particularly a technical field of a disk mounting segment of a disk tray.
2. Description of the Related Art
As shown in FIG. 49, a general type of disk loading mechanism in a tray-type disk drive apparatus such as CD/DVD player or the like is constructed such that an optical pickup unit 202 is attached at the central upper part of a bottom 201a in a mechanical deck (acting as a reference table for all the mechanisms) 201 called a base chassis in such a manner that the optical pickup unit can be freely ascended or descended. In this case, the optical pickup unit 202 is made such that a spindle motor 204 is vertically installed to face upward on a unit base 203, a disk table 205 is mounted on the upper end of the spindle motor 204 and an optical pickup 208 having an objective lens 207 installed vertically to face upward on a sled 206 through a double-axis actuator is mounted at the upper part of the unit base 203 at a rearward position of the spindle motor 204. Then, this optical pickup unit 202 is mounted at the upper part of the ascending/descending frame 209 through a plurality of rubber insulators 210 in a horizontal manner, a pair of right and left fulcrum pins 211 formed on the same central part at both right and left sides of the rear end of the ascending/descending frame 209 are fitted to a pair of right and left fulcrum pin supporting segments 212 formed at both right and left sides of the rear end of the upper part of the mechanical deck 201 and the front end of the ascending/descending frame 209 can be ascended or descended by an oscillating motion in upward or downward direction against the mechanical deck 201 around a pair of right and left fulcrum pins 211.
Then, a slider cam 213 is vertically attached to the upper portion of the front end of the mechanical deck 201 in such a way that it can be slid in rightward or leftward direction crossing at a right angle with a forward or rearward direction, a cam follower pin 215 formed at the central part of the front end of the ascending/descending frame 209 is slidably engaged with an inclined cam groove 214 formed in slant state to the rear surface of the slider cam 213, a loading motor 216 is attached vertically in upward direction to the lower surface of one side at the front end of the mechanical deck 201, a slider cam driving pinion 217 fixed to the upper segment of the front end of the mechanical deck 201 is engaged with a rack 218 formed at the front surface of the slider cam 213. Then, the slider cam 213 is slid and driven in a rightward or leftward direction through the rack 218 by the pinion 217 normally or inversely rotated and driven by the loading motor 216 through a transmission mechanism 219, thereby the cam follower pin 215 is driven to be ascended or descended in an upward or downward direction by the slant cam groove 214, the front end of the ascending/descending frame 209 is ascended or descended in an upward or downward direction by an oscillating motion around the pair of right and left fulcrum pins 211 against the mechanical deck 201.
Then, a disk tray driving pinion 220 is rotatably attached to the upper part of the other side of the front end of the mechanical deck 201 and the pinion 220 is cooperated with the slider cam driving pinion 217. Then, the disk tray 221 is inserted horizontally from a tray inlet or outlet of a front panel (not shown) fixed to the front end of the mechanical deck 201 into an upper part in the mechanical deck 201, and the disk tray 221 is attached in a horizontal state to be slidable in a forward or rearward direction at the upper part in the mechanical deck 201 over the pinions 217, 220, a transmission mechanism 219, a slider cam 218 and the upper part of the optical pickup unit 202. Then, a rack (not shown) of the disk tray 221 is driven by the disk tray driving pinion 220 normally or inversely driven to rotate by the loading motor 216 through the pinion 217 so as to perform both a loading (a retracting action) into the mechanical deck 201 of the disk tray 221 and an unloading (a drawing-out action) toward a forward side out of the front panel of the mechanical deck 201.
Then, a chucking pulley supporting plate 222 is mounted in a horizontal state at the upper part of position where it is displaced at slight front end sides of both right and left side walls 201b of the mechanical deck 201, a circular chucking pulley fixing hole 223 is formed at a position just above the spindle motor 204 by the chucking pulley supporting plate 222, and a disk-like chucking pulley 224 is rotatably supported within the chucking pulley fixing hole 223 under a state having play in upward or downward direction and horizontal direction.
An entire thickness T1 of the related art disk tray 221 is formed to be thick by more than 15 mm, a deep concave section 225 of approximate inverse frustum of circular cone is formed above position displaced at the front end of the disk tray 221, a large-diameter type disk outer circumferential mounting surface 226 with a diameter of about 12 cm is formed in a circular shape at the outer circumference of the bottom of the concave section 225, a small-diameter type disk outer circumferential mounting surface 227 with a diameter of about 8 cm is formed in a concentric circle shape and in one step-down state at the central side of the bottom of the concave section 225, and a pair of right and left recesses 228 are formed at both right and left side positions of the concave section 225. A large central opening 229 formed from the central part of the concave section 225 toward its rear side is formed at the bottom of the disk tray 221.
Then, at the time of disk loading, the outer circumference of a 12-cm laser disk LD or the like of a CD/DVD and the like is mounted in a horizontal state above a large diameter type disk outer circumference mounting surface 226 with a diameter of about 12 cm within the concave section 225 of the disk tray 221, two pinions 217, 220 are normally driven to rotate under a normal rotational driving of the loading motor 216, the disk tray 221 is loaded (retracted) in a horizontal state into a retracted position in the mechanical deck 201, thereafter the slider cam 213 is slid and driven toward one side by the pinion 217, the front end of the optical pickup unit 202 is oscillated upwardly around a pair of right and left fulcrum pins 211 of the ascending/descending frame 209 and the optical pickup unit 202 is lifted from the descended position where it is inclined in a slant forward and lower direction to the ascending position where it keeps a horizontal attitude.
Then, both the disk table 205 of the spindle motor 204 and the objective lens 207 of the optical pickup 208 are inserted from below into the bottom opening 229 of the disk tray 221, the disk table 204 is fitted from below into a center hole LDa of the laser disk LD, the laser disk LD is floated above the disk outer circumference mounting surface 226 of the disk tray 221 and the laser disk LD is chucked with magnet in a horizontal state on the disk table 205 by the chucking pulley 224.
After that, while the laser disk LD is being driven to rotate by the spindle motor 204, the objective lens 207 of the optical pickup 208 is searched in both inner and outer circumferential directions of the laser disk LD by the sled 206 to reproduce (read) data.
In addition, at the time of disk unloading, it performs an opposite operation to that of disk loading and the two pinions 217, 220 are driven to Reversely rotate by reverse rotational driving of the loading motor 216. That is, the slider cam 213 is slid and driven to the other side by the pinion 217, the front end of the optical pickup unit 202 is descended from the ascending position to the descending position by its oscillating motion, the chucking of the laser disk LD with the chucking pulley 224 is released, both disk table 205 and the objective lens 206 are descended downwardly of the central opening 229 of the disk tray 221 and at the same time the outer circumference of the laser disk LD is mounted again in a horizontal state above the large diameter type disk outer circumference mounting surface 226 of the disk tray 221.
After that, the disk tray 221 is unloaded (drawn out) in a horizontal state up to the leading-out position out of the mechanical deck 201 by the pinion 220.
A pair of right and left recesses 228 formed at both right and left sides of the deep concave section 225 of the disk tray 221 are formed so as to facilitate removal of the laser disk LD from within the deep concave section 225. As shown by a dash-single-dot line in FIG. 50, a forefinger HDa of a right hand HD of a right-handed person is inserted from above into the central hole LDa of the laser disk LD, a thumb HDb is inserted from a side into the left side recess 128 to press a part of the outer circumferential surface LDb of the laser disk LD from its lateral side, the laser disk LD is held with both forefinger HDa and thumb HDb and the disk can be easily taken out above the concave section 225.
However, the structure as found in the related art disk tray 212 in which a thickness T1 is made thick, a deep concave section 225 of inverse frustum of circular cone is formed, a disk outer circumference mounting surface 126 is formed at a bottom of the concave section 225 and at the same time a pair of recesses 128 are formed at both right and left sides of the concave section 225 had difficulty in making the disk tray 212 thin and had an inconvenience in loading/unloading of the laser disk LD against the disk outer circumference mounting surface 126 at the bottom in the concave section 225.
That is, as illustrated in FIG. 50, in order to hold the laser disk LD by a forefinger HDa and a thumb HDb and remove it from the apparatus in such a way that a forefinger HDa of a hand HD is inserted into the central hole LDa of the laser disk LD, and a part of the outer circumferential surface LDb of the laser disk LD is pressed with a thumb HDb, the thumb HDb must be inserted into any one of a pair of right and left recesses 238, resulting in that an inserting direction of the hand HD against the disk tray 221 is restricted. Accordingly, the related art had an inconvenience that the loading/unloading of the laser disk LD could not be performed while the inserting direction of the hand HD against the disk tray 221 was being freely varied.
The present invention has been invented in order to solve the aforesaid problem and it is an object of the present invention to enable an orientation of hand in respect to the disk tray to be freely changed in a desired direction when the disk recording medium is loaded/unloaded against the disk tray.
The disk drive apparatus of the present invention for accomplishing the aforesaid object is made such that the disk outer circumference mounting surface of the disk tray is made in flush with the upper surface of the disk tray or higher than the upper surface, or lowered by an amount of depth smaller than the thickness of the disk-like recording medium or the disk outer circumference mounting surface is constituted by a plurality of protuberances.
In the disk drive apparatus of the present invention constructed as described above, the disk-like recording medium can be held easily with a hand utilizing a substantial entire circumference of thickness of the disk-like recording medium when the disk-like recording medium is loaded/unloaded against the disk tray, so that when the disk-like recording medium is loaded/unloaded in respect to the disk tray, the hand inserting direction against the disk tray can be changed freely and loading/unloading of the disk-like recording medium can be performed quite easily. Then, a substantial quite thin formation of the disk tray can be attained, adhesion of dust to the disk-like recording medium or the like can be substantially improved and further drop-out at the time of data recording and/or data reproduction can be prevented. In addition, there is provided a disk holding segment capable of holding the disk-like recording medium against the disk tray in a substantial parallel state and this disk holding segment enables the disk drive apparatus to be used in a vertical orientation. In addition, a circular contour line is formed at an outer circumference of the disk outer circumference mounting surface or a plurality of disk guides are colored in dark color and the position of the disk outer circumference mounting surface can easily be acknowledged.